political perspectives from Joni Hudson-Reynolds, an African-American Mom

Is Ray Rice a victim of Big Screen Justice?

Yesterday the Baltimore Ravens cut Ray Rice after they saw the video of what happened in that NJ casino. When we saw Rice drag his then fiancée off the elevator what did we think happened? She didn’t faint. We could assume he knocked her out, but yesterday when we saw it on the big screen we could no longer keep our collective heads in the sand. We had to acknowledge the obvious, but where do we go from here? The media will talk about the Rice saga until the numbers dip, but what are we going to do? We sit and look at the videotape with horror, but where is that horror when we watch Love and Hip Hop. We see women fighting women, women fighting men and men fighting women and we watch this while devouring popcorn. We call this entertainment. Our young people watch these shows. One of my friends said her daughter thought the Rice situation was bad but she did not find it horrifying. I also saw an 18 year old young man being interviewed last night and he said women have to learn not to disrespect their man. He felt a man was justified to get physical if he believed he was being disrespected. So we need to talk to our young people about what domestic violence really is. Most violence is not played out on the big screen. It is generally done in private. It might be happening to your neighbors or your church members. Some people on your job who are ragging on Rice today might be abusers but you will never know. It is done behind closed doors and there are no cameras. Share your thoughts.